Winner of the Nobel prize in literature in 1980, poet Milosz (Road-Side Dog, Milosz's ABC), has long made the experience of Poland in the past harsh century the keystone of his writing. In this collection of his essays and other prose, containing material spanning from 1942 to 1998, he writes of life in Wilno, Paris, Warsaw, and California with poignant insight and describes his friends in all these places sensitively and honestly. The difficult conditions of exile and the passage of time are constant themes in Milosz's work, along with considerations of the European mind, the Catholic faith, humanism, and the collective nature of humanity's struggles. He approaches these varied and rich subjects through personal memoirs, biographies of friends, and thoughts gained from philosophy, literature, and writing. The essays on Jerzy Andrzejewski, Robinson Jeffers, Simone Weil, Lev Shestov, and Polish poetry are major statements of this great writer's beliefs. Highly recommended for literature collections.